Subject:Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy.

The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation Draco.

The researchers found this gas giant reflects less than 1 percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it darker than any planet or moon seen up to now.

"It's just ridiculous how dark this planet is, how alien it is compared to anything we have in our solar system," study lead-author David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told SPACE.com. "It's darker than the blackest lump of coal, than dark acrylic paint you might paint with. It's bizarre how this huge planet became so absorbent of all the light that hits it."

Subject:Re: Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

Subject:Re: Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

Written By:Foo Baron08/12/11 at 10:42 pm

A new chemical/element to add to the periodic table.

Nope. Just the same old ones we know and love, just a little warmer than usual. Imagine if something about the size and composition Jupiter were 3 million miles from the surface of the Sun and had cooked at 1000C for a few billion years. A world in which all the volatile stuff was blown away, leaving (I'd guess) some variation of a metallic core and (from observation) an atmosphere composed essentially of vaporized rock.

Subject:Re: Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

Written By:King Tuton08/12/11 at 11:10 pm

Nope. Just the same old ones we know and love, just a little warmer than usual. Imagine if something about the size and composition Jupiter were 3 million miles from the surface of the Sun and had cooked at 1000C for a few billion years. A world in which all the volatile stuff was blown away, leaving (I'd guess) some variation of a metallic core and (from observation) an atmosphere composed essentially of vaporized rock.

A family of dark pet rocks. A new fad http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/stab.gifhttp://images.etsy.com/all_images/b/b57/1f8/il_430xN.14347816.jpg

Subject:Re: Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/12/11 at 11:56 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5071qtEFrc

Subject:Re: Creepy Black Hell Planet Found!

Written By:Foo Baron08/13/11 at 12:17 am

(Sisters of Mercy - Black Planet)

Oh, it is on, dude. Sisters of Mercy may trump Public Enemy in the obscurity department, but I see your goth and raise you some acid house:

2 Frenchmen: Black Planet, ca. 1991.

CiHl7iPct4Y

(Which got extended into the Black Planet (Save the Planet Remix), but I like the version which, after sampling The B-52's Planet Claire for a few minutes ends with "WELL SHE ISN'T!" Both tracks used a few seconds of Bizarre Inc's track (from around 2:35-2:41) Playing with Knives as a backbeat.)

If you're wondering why the video that claims to be the "Save the Planet" remix has the picture of a 12" single that doesn't have a "Save the Planet" remix on it, while the video with the handwritten label claims to be the Bioenergetic Remix (which is depicted on label the first video!), so am I. I think it's because the two images came from Black Planet pages on discogs, and the discrepancy appears to be partially resolved in the comments on the discogs page.